Packing pallets are used to ship equipment such as, for example, a telecommunications switch with its casters. Experience has taught that prior art packing pallets, such as that shown in FIG. 1, are unacceptable because they allow shock and vibration to be passed directly to the telecommunications equipment cabinet without proper protection. As a result, the use of such prior art packing pallets has caused a large incidence of damage to the equipment. This damage has, in turn, resulted in large extra expense due to the extra expense involved in: (a) repairing damaged equipment; (b) warehousing extra equipment for replacement purposes; and (c) additional shipping costs.
In addition, the use of prior art pallets like that shown in FIG. 1 led to the fact that accessory equipment, line cords, publications, spare parts and so forth were shipped in separate boxes. As a result, these materials often arrived at a customer's site at a different than the switch. As one can readily appreciate, this caused problems in that equipment assembly was often delayed.
In light of the above, there is a need in the art for a packing pallet that can handle a telecommunications switch along with its accessories, line cords, publications, and spare parts. Further, there is a need in the art for such a packing pallet which: (a) protects the equipment from shipment damage; (b) ensures that all of the equipment will arrive with the switch; (c) eliminates tip hazards during shipment; (c) increases the total weight of a unit load, which increase will reduce potential drop height during shipment; and (d) permits easy removal of the equipment from the pallet.